Alec Rennard’s scoreless innings streak ended at 32.1 innings, but the Bear Cub’s ace settled in nicely, going the distance in the Santa Rosa Junior College baseball team’s 3-1 win over Sacramento City College April 12 at Cook Sypher Field.
SRJC (25-3, 13-1) was eager to get back onto the field after their 6-2 defeat at Sac City (24-5, 10-4) April 10.
“We were just ready to come back out here and get to work,” said SRJC shortstop Jake Scheiner. “We need to keep grinding. We’re getting into the tough part of our schedule. We need to start treating every game like playoffs.”
Scheiner’s bat was ready to go from the start. After a one-out walk to center fielder Bryce Nagata, Scheiner ripped the first pitch he saw into the right-center field gap for a game tying triple and his 38th RBI of the season.
First baseman Ryder Kuhns followed with a blooper just out of the reach of the Sac City right fielder, who was charged with an error on the play, to score the go-ahead run.
With two outs, designated hitter Matt Bone came through with an RBI single to right field, pushing the lead to 3-1.
After allowing his first run in five starts, Rennard (9-1) regained his usual form. He retired eight-straight batters until giving up a one-out double in the top of the fourth. With two outs and a runner on third base, Rennard got Tyson Solis to ground out to shortstop to preserve SRJC’s two-run advantage.
Rennard looked to be tiring towards the end of his 108-pitch outing. He walked a batter with two outs in the top of the eighth, but struck out the next batter to end the inning.
After allowing a lead-off double to start the top of the ninth, it became questionable whether or not Rennard would be allowed to finish what he started. Even with arms warmed up in the bullpen, SRJC head coach Damon Neidlinger didn’t come get his right-hander.
SRJC third baseman George Foster made a nice back-handed snag on a line drive for the first out of the inning, and Rennard induced two fly-ball outs to center field to end the game.
Rennard finished allowing one run on six hits, a walk and three strikeouts.
“Whether it’s five, six, seven, eight or nine innings, I need to come out here and do my job,” Rennard said. “I gave up a run in the first and then we got three. After that I said, ‘Okay, I’m not going to give up another one.’”
Northern California’s top two teams have split the first two games of the three-game set. They face off in game three on April 14 at Sac City.
